Spark People journal for 3/29

A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison. - Francis Bacon

Taking care of what matters most

Your body is one of the most fragile things you need to care for. All too often we allow sickness, stress, and even other people run our lives. It's tough to consistently pursue your goals when you're laid up or constantly fighting illness. Take a preventive approach to your health. By eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, getting plenty of sleep, and dealing with your emotions, you can build and maintain a healthy body that can help you improve other areas of your life!






I love getting these in my emails daily and I figured I'd share them on my blog. I hope you enjoy them

Mamavation Monday 3/29

Well another week has passed, and its almost April. I didn't get to do too much this week, I had an appt with my doc on Monday who said I needed to take it easy this week until after I had my Upper GI Scope that I had on Friday so that I could take pain meds to help with my back pain (wasn't allowed to take any anti-inflammitory meds for a week prior to my scope), but that after a week I could start again, and he wanted to see me back in 3 weeks to see if the pain meds and the muscle relaxers helped with my back pain. He also did an xray to see if there was anything going on that needed to be dealt with. I did take Baby D to the park on Thursday, and we had a wonderful walk so I did get some exercise in, and I've been tracking my food much better the last few days. It seems that my motivation has finally came back (Oh how I've missed it) and I'm finding the time to log my food in. As for my scope, the doctor increased my Nexium that I take and said that should improve my stomach problems, so we'll see. Other than that, being weighed on Monday and being weighed on Friday, I had lost 6 lbs. Probably because I can be watching more of what I was eating, since I only go two workouts in, but I'll take it.

Goals for this week, I'm going to get back to my workouts this week (starting on Sunday), and keep up with the food tracking. I'm hoping to get some more weight off soon. I'm not looking forward to having to buy new clothes since I'm not a fan of shopping, but as soon as I get my goal weight I'll be glad to do some shopping. I'm hoping the weather improves so that Baby D and I can walk at the park more, and we'll be going to the gym a couple of times a week too. We are going to be eating at home most of the week, and I've already done out our meal plan, I'm excited about it. We had to change it up today since I forgot to put out the steaks and my throat still wasn't totally ready for that.

I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Mamavation and the Sistahood. The ladies that are apart of it are so amazing and supportive and I'm grateful for that support. I love reading the tweets and posts from my Sistas and seeing how well they are doing. I'd also like to give a shoutout to one of the Mamavation sponsors, Earth Footwear. I've heard nothing but great things about their shoes and I hope to get a pair in the near future. This month they are teaming up with Mamavation to help celebrate their 40th anniversary and Earth Day which is in April and they are going to be having give-aways all month. Check Earth Footwear out, you'll see that their shoes are great and help you get some weight off and tone up.

Also if you are considering applying to be the next Mamavation mom, don't forget to get your application in by April 1st. The info for apply to be a mamavation mom is found here.  And the Twitter Party to announce our new mamavation moms will be on April 12th. Yay for Twitter parties since it will be hosted by the wonderful Amy @ResourcefulMom.

What do you stand for?

I thought that this would be something great to ponder, I am milling over it to come up with something cool to say, lol. So what's your thoughts? What do you stand for? I know that one purpose I have is to be a good mom and a wonderful wife. But there are so many other things that I want to do with my life.

What do you stand for?

Have you ever thought about the power of having a purpose? Everyone needs something that gets them moving in the morning, keeps them going through the day, and makes them continue to work toward a goal. Take some time to think about the activities you are involved in and how they relate to your personal purpose. For the activities that don't serve your purpose, ask yourself why you continue with them. Perhaps you need to reevaluate your commitments and renew your conviction toward your purpose.

From SparkPeople, One of my favorite sites for weight loss. 

Mamavation Monday 3/22

This week wasn't the greatest. We got to the gym once, it was early in the week, but the base gym was doing a remodel so everyone else was in there and we had to wait for the treadmill and the elliptical so I couldn't get my whole workout in, since after an hour Baby D wanted to have a breakdown. But the gym was supposed to be back to normal by Saturday, so I may go over today. I have an appt with my doc today to talk about some back pain I've been having when I work out, so hopefully he will have some good answers for me. No weight loss to note right now, it sucks, so it is fueling me to make this week a much better week. I'm going to try and get more home workout in since the baby is being more content at times, just not all the time lol. I've been slacking on keeping track of my food, but that's gonna stop. If I want to see changes I need to make changes too and not just do what I've been doing, just thinking that making a few changes is going to work. I have seen what changes Lisa and Katie have made and I want to do that too. I'm reading Tracey Mallett's Sexy in 6, I added her ipod app to my ipod so I can watch her videos, and I'm going to restart my C25K, since I couldn't get to the gym this week due to the work there.

I hope that everyone has a great week. Good luck to those mamas that are applying to be our next #mamavation mom.

The Flowering Cross review

I was lucky to be given the oppurtunity to review The Flowering Cross, a very touching Easter story by Beth Ryan about a young girl named Katie, (very wonderful name) showing God's love to her neighbor Papa Jack, who goes from being a mean old man to a wonderful man sharing in God's love as well.

I loved pulling it out of the box, the cover caught my attention, with artwork done by Renee Graef.  The artwork is wonderful and it is great for children of any age to enjoy. I enjoyed reading the story, that can be easily related to all children, and then being able to think more about the reading with Faith Imprint, which give a way to discuss the story in a much simpler way to our children. I also like that there are Bible verses at the bottom as well to tie the whole story together. Reading such a wonderful story about sharing God's love with everyone, even those that seem mean and unreachable is something everyone should remember to do.

The Flowering Cross is a very simple and loving story about God's love in the lives of a young girl and her family and how they share it with others. It also give directions at the back of the book on how to make your own Flowering Cross.

I received this as a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson and Book Sneeze. I was not paid for my review nor was I encouraged to give a favorable one.

Mamavation Monday 3/15

Well last week I started the C25K running program, which is the couch to 5k (Cool Running has a lot of great info on the subject). I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill and it felt great. Hubs was really proud of me and kept telling me over and over again. The next day, well my legs hurt and my chest hurt, but I was still proud. I plan on going to the gym today, once hubs gets back from work since its raining outside. Not much else was done this week, I've not been feeling the greatest but I'm hoping for a much better week this week.

I wanted to apply for the next Mamavation Mom campaign, but I will have an upper GI scope on the 26th of this month, so I will be waiting until the next campaign to apply. But I am ready to support our next batch of mamas. And a big CONGRATS to our current mamas Lisa and Katie, I'm so proud of you girls and and the weight you loss and everything you both did.

Short but sweet post, *hugs* to everyone

I want to win EA Sports Active from The Princess & The Monkey

My twitter pal and #mamavation sista @colleen_mouse has a giveaway on her blog located here. I love EA Sports Active, I have the main game for my Wii and I'm excited about the upcoming release of the next version. I rarely get the chance to get to the gym with my lil man still being well little so I try to do a lot of my workouts at home, (I get to the gym with hubs and baby D at least once a week, hoping to get more). So I have yet to get the More Workouts version of the EA Sports Active game, I've been working on talking the hubs into, but I think it would be a great addition to my home workouts that I do so that I can keep up with my fitness goals.  Ms. Collen is a Tropicana Juicy Rewards Insider so she cashed in some of her rewards and purchased a copy of the game to give one of her lucky followers, and I'm hoping its me. :D You can check out the Tropicana Juicy Rewards site here

Twitter Parties and a basic Twitter 101

Over the last month or so I have learned about the wonderful world of Twitter parties. My first Twitter party was I think for the launch of the current (and soon to end) Mamavation campaign. (If you haven't heard about Mamavation, a social media project that helps support mamas in their weight loss goals, stop by and check it out.) It's sometimes hard to keep up with them, but there are things to help you along. I use Tweet Deck, which I also run to keep up with my twitter, facebook, and myspace status updates. There are a few other things similar to use like HootSuite (but I don't know too much about them). I use TweetChat and TweetGrid. to keep up with parties. With TweetGrid you can have several different hashtags (the subject or person you are talking about such. Using a hashtag helps to talk with others who are following the same thing you are, like #oscars, #Twilight and such) to follow and keep them all in one window verus TweetChat that will only let you use one hashtag to follow, but they both will let you see anyones tweets who are using the same hashtag as you. You use both TweetChat and TweetGrid within your browser, Tweet Deck you run as a program on your computer (or Iphone/Ipod Touch). Twitter Parties are also a great way to meet other people to 'follow' that have similar interests as you too. But for a very good post on "How to Participate in a Twitter Party, check out Resourceful Mommy's blog here and get the 411 on Twitter Parties by the wonderful mama that runs most of the Twitter parties that I attend. Hope this will help you learn a little more about Twitter Parties and help you take part in a lot of fun.

woohoo W1D1 of C25K

I've been reading about and hearing about a program to get you running called Couch to 5K or C25K. The website that I have looked up info at is Cool Running. They have a lot of information there and links to programs that help you get through the program. I downloaded an app for my Ipod touch, which for $1.99 it seems to be worth it and so much more. So today on our family outing to the base gym I started my first day. I guess for the first week you run for 1 minute and then walk for 1 1/2 minutes. Wow let me tell ya, this girl hasn't run in a really REALLY long time. Last time I really ran was last year when my pal Laura made me run during a personal training session. But even though I wanted to stop I kept it up. Hubs came back into the room and he was very surprised to see me on the treadmill and more surprised to know what I was doing. But the fact that he was proud of me and kept expressing how proud he was of me made me feel great. So I hope that it will only get better from here, I know running isn't easy but I would love to be able to run with hubs. So anyone else learning the C25K plan?

MYCAA back on

Well if you were like me, and pretty upset about the shutting down of MYCAA, which is a program by the DOD to help military spouses get a portable degree since we move so much. After tons of protests and letter writing and many other things done by spouses, the program looks like it will be back up and running. I know that I applied and was accepted into the program last June, so that I could work on my Medical Transcription certification. And I hope to have it completed soon, so that I will be able to find a job so that I can stay home with my lil man, for awhile anyway. So if you haven't heard, go and check out MyCaa homepage.

Mail call for 3/11

I love getting mail, hubs makes fun of me because I am always waiting for the mail man to come. And I get upset when I dont get something in the mail lol. I always get something, usually junk, but there are the days that I get good stuff like today. I received two envelopes of coupons from trains that I participate in. I love trading coupons because there are places in the country that dont get the same coupons that we do here and vice versa. So besides those today I also got my prize package from @chickadeeprints, which was a selection of note cards. Very excited about them. I also got my Heluva Good dip coupon for a free product. Yay I love free product. And I also got my ring from ChunkyBling.com, the site that I posted about recently (found here). I wrote a blog for them about their products and got a beautiful chunky ring. I've gotten tons of stuff over the last few months, like a couopon for a free pack of Oreos when the Manning brothers beat the Trumps from Facebook. I received a bottle of hot sauce when the Saints won the Super Bowl from Facebook. I just keep my eye out for things, reading blogs and such that people post and try and get it on the deals. I even received a free Uniball pen, which works awesome, from following deals. I'm trying to figure out if I will start blogging like so many others do about deals, but that will probably have to wait a while.
Here are a couple of pics of what I got in the mail today.

Yay Eclipse

So yea I'm a big Twilight fan. I wasn't at first. Heck I was pretty upset when Twilight (the first movie) came out since it was released on the date that Harry Potter was supposed to come out in 2008, but I went since a good pal of mine had a babysitter and I didn't want her to go to the movie alone. I enjoyed the movie a lot (minus the fact that it had replaced my Precious HP which I'm an even bigger fan of, or so I thought). I bought all the books finally and then didn't read them. Finally while hubs was out on his first deployment and I was pregnant, I read the series. Which I did so in a silly way, started with New Moon (since I had seen Twilight and thought I didn't need to read it) and then worked my way through them. Which I don't recommend doing when your husband is deployed, even though it made me appreciate the relationship that I have with my husband even more. But I digress from the real reason for this post. The new trailer was released for Eclipse, the 3rd book in the series and I'm so excited. Plus with New Moon coming out on DVD in a little over a week (WOOT) I can't wait. So I hope you enjoy this trailer that I got from a post on ASA (A sailors anchor) from the Twilight Lexicon site.

Vote for my Blog to win us both $1000

Yea so I'm braving another contest. Yea, my blog is still in its working stages and all but, Hey doesn't hurt to try anyway. So I entered a contest by Little Remedies (twitter @LittleRemedies) which has great products that help my lil baby D to win $1000 or some other cool prizes. So check it out here and we might be able to win.

 

Mamavation Monday 3/8 woohoo

So for the most part this was a pretty good week. Was able to get to the gym, for the first time in almost a year, with the hubs and Baby D. The family fitness room was ok, had several ellipticals and one treadmill which sucked, but hey beggars cant be choosers when its free. They had weights in there too, not anything too exciting, but at least I got something in. I did a Bollywood Booty video this week too, which I hadn't done in a long time either and enjoyed laughing at myself as I worked up a sweat, so did the baby. Yesterday we all went out and enjoyed the beautiful weather and walked around the park. It was so nice to be out in the fresh air, and was nice to be able to walk around the park and not run out of breath or be uncomfortable, seeing as the last time I walked it, I was 30 weeks pregnant or near about. I'm hoping to get over to the gym a couple of times a week, and I'm hoping to possibly find a babysitter at least once a week so that I can take a Zumba class, I hear great things about them.

I've been tracking my food better, using the SparkPeople food tracker, I think I tracked 3 days this week, which is a vast improvement. My water intake is increasing, slightly. At least I'm drinking some everyday, vs not drinking any. Fruits and Veggies are getting easier. even for dinner tonite I'm going to try Eggplant, hubs wants to make something with the Eggplant we bought at the store, so we'll see how that goes. I think I got my #fruitsnveggies in another 5/7 days, but at least they are getting in. As of 5:30 am when I'm writing this I've not weighed myself, I'll do that in a bit (once Baby D and I get up from our nap) and update this.

Goals for this week:
-I added the Couch to 5k app on my Ipod Touch and I'm going to use @fitcheerldr 's new forum on getting starting running so that I might be able to run. Now that I have the app on my Ipod that means I'll do it, right?
-Keep getting those Fruits and Veggies in, they are so yummy.
-Keep getting my water in, water does taste really really good.
-Try to get back to the gym this week, if not oh well, I've got a list of my workout videos and stuff I can do at home, which I'll post for next week.
-Try tracking my food more days out of the week, I know its hard when we are making our own thing, but at least I can try.

I hope my #mamavation Sistas and mamas are having a great week. And that our #mamavation Moms Katie and Lisa have a kick butt final week. *hugs*

3/1

Monday was a pretty ok day overall. I look forward to Monday nites with the Mamavation moms and chatting with them. DH had duty so it was just me and lil man. He didn't sleep well the nite before and was up again today at 4 am. Oh well, I know once he's on a better sleep schedule then maybe I'll sleep better. I've been stressing yet again on the unknown and so my eating hasn't always been the best every day, but I'm throwing in more veggies and fruit so I hope that helps. Stress over the thought of moving on short notice is probably going to make my hair turn even more gray so I need to just let it go and roll with the punches. Trying to get more fitness in so that I have more energy needs to be my goal for right now. and of course eating better will help that along too. I'm hoping to start the wii active 30 day challenge on moderate today. I know that if I get some more energy then I wont be as down.